And In Dreams, We Will Meet Again
by Toaofwriting
Summary: Spoilers for 3x11/3x12 While in New York, Henry and Emma forget about Storybrooke and their magical lives there. But nothing is ever forgotten, not really, and the human mind is stronger and stranger than people give it credit for. One-shot.


**Hey, everyone, I'm back.**

 **As always, nothing belongs to me.**

Henry dreams.

At night, once Emma's tucked him in and read him a bedtime story, and he falls into slumber, Henry has dreams. He dreams of beautiful Princesses and handsome Princes; dragons and werewolves, imps who call him "dearie" and young men dressed all in green.

In his dreams, his mother is a brave heroine, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, who saved a whole town with little more than courage and ingenuity…and a little help from him, too, of course.

In his dreams, his father is the son of Rumplestiltskin, and he had another mom, a beautiful dark-haired woman who would have done anything for him, the Evil Queen who was also the mother-in-law of Snow White (except that she isn't evil, not really).

In his dreams, the fairy-tale characters he's read about come alive, and either help or torment him, become good friends and feared enemies.

In his dreams, Henry is a hero, executing Operation: Cobra, selflessly eating a poisoned tart, and learning sword fighting with his granddad, Prince Charming.

And every night, his mother the Queen-except Emma's his mom, but she is too, and it's all so _confusing_ -casts a spell, one that will protect them all, but he can never see her again, and she'll be all alone, and that makes him really sad.

The dreams intensify when he and his Mom visit the town in Maine- _Storybrooke-_ which is kind of cool and kind of weird, where people will sometimes act like they know him, even though they can't possibly…

 _But they do,_ whispers his subconscious…

But he can never quite remember.

When he wakes up, he always feels sad for just a moment, as the dreams slip away and (what he thinks is) his real life presses in. By the time he's out of bed, the dreams have faded away, to the back of his mind where dreams and memories mix and mingle together, and can never quite be remembered during waking hours.

Every so often, he'll see or hear something that reminds him of his dreams, if only for a second. But hey, it's just a dream, right?

After all, fairy tales aren't real.

Emma has flashes.

When she walks past a jewelry store, she looks at the word _Gold,_ and just for a moment, has a vision of a tall, impeccably dressed man, leaning on a cane and smirking at her.

When she looks at a man with a fishing line and sees a hook on the edge of the cable, she thinks, for a moment, of another silver hook at the end of a wrist, of a handsome man with a roguish smile and (almost) no morals.

When she goes to pick up Henry from school one day, she spots a young, red-headed girl yelling to an old woman, "Hi, Granny!"

Even though she just had a snack, Emma's stomach suddenly rumbles, and she thinks of a dusty ledger, a young woman with cherry-red hair and sometimes-skimpy outfits, and a kind older woman, ferocious as a wolf but with incredibly good cooking.

She sees a man wearing a top hat, and has to repress an involuntary shiver at the sight of the hat, even though it's at least 80 and the middle of summer and besides, what's wrong with hats?

When she's browsing the bookstore, looking at the fantasy section and deciding if there's anything Henry would want (he's always been really into myths and fairy tales and all that sort of thing), her eye falls on a picture book, the story of Snow White and her Prince Charming.

"That's wrong," she mutters with absolute conviction. "That's not the way it was."

She shakes herself-why is she so adamant about a stupid fairy tale? Maybe Henry and his fantasy worlds are rubbing off on her.

At Henry's school, she meets a boy called Peter, and has a visceral reaction, a memory for just an instant of a cruel, cruel boy dressed in green, smirking at her. Then it's gone.

Because, of course, that's all any of these things are-Snow White, Rumplestiltskin, the Mad Hatter, Peter Pan. They're fairy tales, and after all, fairy tales aren't real.

At least, not for them. Not anymore. Not yet.

 **Please, please, please let me know what you think. Thank you!**


End file.
